own fancy; and their minds were so full of their own worldly notions of
grandeur and command, that they could not receive into their souls the gift
of God present before their eyes. Therefore he was taken away, that his
Spirit, which was more himself than his bodily presence, might come into
them--that they might receive the gift of God into their innermost being.
After he had gone out of their sight, and they might look all around and
down in the grave and up in the air, and not see him anywhere--when they
thought they had lost him, he began to come to them again from the other
side--from the inside. They found that the image of him which his presence
with them had printed in light upon their souls, began to revive in the
dark of his absence; and not that only, but that in looking at it without
the overwhelming of his bodily presence, lines and forms and meanings began
to dawn out of it which they had never seen before. And his words came back
to them, no longer as they had received them, but as he meant them. The
spirit of Christ filling their hearts and giving them new power, made them
remember, by making them able to understand, all that he had said to them.
They were then always saying to each other, 'You remember how;' whereas
before, they had been always staring at each other with astonishment and
something very near incredulity, while he spoke to them. So that after he
had gone away, he was really nearer to them than he had been before. The
meaning of anything is more than its visible presence. There is a soul in
everything, and that soul is the meaning of it. The soul of the world
and all its beauty has come nearer to you, my dear, just because you are
separated from it for a time."

"Thank you, dear papa. I do like to get a little sermon all to myself now
and then. That is another good of being ill."

"You don't mean me to have a share in it, then, Connie, do you?" said my
wife, smiling at her daughter's pleasure.